SIDNEY — The year 2015 was another very good year for Electro Controls.
“While the gas and oil markets were very soft this past year, we were able to fill those voids with deeper penetration into the food equipment and agriculture markets,” said Company President Tim Geise. “The egg industry is booming in the Midwest and the opportunities we’ve had in automation and controls for the bird houses has been fantastic. In addition, we secured some very nice orders from the water and wastewater industry as a result of our focused engineering and design efforts from our Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Division. At the end of the day, I am extremely grateful for our employees and their contributions. We have a great team and our clients and business partners are like family to us.”
His report follows:
Sales results in 2015 were just slightly behind budget, but influenced by a single large OEM client whose product mix shifted where their need for controls was down by 30 percent. This situation noticeably changed for the better in the last quarter and the forecast with that OEM looks great for 2016. The OEM markets in general have been a bit volatile, lead time requirements across the board continue to shrink, and price point pressures have never been greater. However, we are very pleased that we are positioned with an effective business strategy and value proposition that has allowed us to maintain and grow our business in most areas. We have had to rely on continual improvement initiatives and creativity for our success and we’ve been able to do just that. The credit goes to our employees, they are engaged in the client relationship from top to bottom and at all levels. We really push to embed ourselves into our client’s businesses, to really understand what their challenges are, and to provide cost effective solutions to help them meet those challenges.
Our team has grown again in 2015. We have added technicians in almost all production areas and we also added another electrical designer in our SCADA division. In June, in an effort to better serve our client base and to maximize our work flow efficiency and continuity, Electro Controls merged our engineering, custom assembly, and controls integration teams into one unified division. This division now operates namely as the Controls and Engineering Division and this new organizational structure has further enhanced the services and value that we provide. We finished the year operating with 88 full time employees.
In February, we added another permanent mezzanine providing an additional 4,000 square feet for raw material and finished goods warehousing. Our facility has grown to almost 60,000 square feet, which is almost 60 percent more space than we had when we built and moved into the facility in 2001. In November, we purchased 2.8 acres of land directly to the north of our current facility to open up expansion options for the future. We continue to invest in technology and equipment to enhance our services and increase our efficiencies in order to provide best value for the client.
We are excited as to what lies ahead for Electro Controls. 2016 will mark our 40th year in business and we feel we have the right people in place to continue to grow and prosper. We pledge to offer best in class solutions for automation systems, control panels, and wire harnesses. We are proud to be serving a wide range of clients and industries across North America from Sidney, Ohio, and we want to thank all our employees, clients, and the business community for working with us.
